An Unbreakable Bond
by Cirronian de Bergerac
Summary: Why couldn't DM really kill Kristen?


An Unbreakable Bond  
  
Set during the events of Chivalry  
  
I don't own them. They all belong to RPD and the wonderful Mr. Widen who brought their world to us. Making no money just thinking in e-print.  
  
Feedback appreciated (even if it is howls of agony to tell me STOP already).  
  
Listening to Methos' quickening induced restlessness on his couch, Duncan contemplated his actions on the beach. Why had he been unable to kill Kristen? How could he have let Methos kill Kristen? Both of the questions roiled within him.  
  
Duncan turned over in bed, his thoughts on Kristen's death. It wasn't chivalry that had stayed his own killing blow. To most of the world, chilvalry was about the supposedly weaker sex. To Duncan it was a more a code of conduct governing the actions of the strong toward the weak.  
  
It wasn't about not being able to kill a lover either. It wasn't about not being able to kill a female. With a quiet snort he acknowledged that he had done both in his past.  
  
His memories reminded him of Felicia Martens, cold heartlessness hidden by a well-designed ploy of amnesia. She had wielded her body like a well-honed weapon. Ensnaring Richie, disturbing Tessa and shielding her intentions in a morass of duplicity.  
  
He had become her reluctant teacher, fighting down an innate distrust and hoping against all hope that she was what she proclaimed. Her presence felt wrong somehow for a new immortal, more loudly discordant than it should have. If she had not betrayed herself as a calculating hunter he would have become her teacher in truth. Hadn't he aquired other teachers after Connor? He would have accepted the duty.  
  
Killing her had been like putting down a rabid animal. She had no remorse about killing mortals and certainly used unfair tactics in her kills. No fair challenge and combat, chicanery and deceit were her stock in trade. Her modus operandi had been as cold and calculating as any assasin.  
  
He had felt only a moments disturbance over killing her. He had just been thankful that she hadn't truly been his student and that he hadn't had to break that bond with death.  
  
His memories played onward to Nefertiri, small and soft and confused. Entombed for hundreds of years yet emerging resilent and wondering. He remembered her childlike marvel at all the new things in her world.  
  
Sharing her body with such uninhibited sensuality. To feel her envelope him in pleasure, to give her fufillment had been an unparalelled gift. He had even assumed that once she acclimated to the new world in which she had awakened, they would continue to be friends even if they left their physical relationship behind.  
  
But she had been unable to let go of the past, she had killed Constantine's wife just to make the other immortal hurt. She had not been who he thought she was. Her quickening had seared him. Even as she had accepted his body into hers, he had accepted the essence that she had been into his soul.  
  
He grieved for her inability to adapt, to accept her new future and forgive what the old Roman could not change. Even Constantine's sincere regret and remorse had not swayed her anger or her vengeance and an innocent had paid the price. When given the last chance to let it all go, she had chosen to fight him, to chance death rather than walking away from her revenge. And so she had died, at his hand.  
  
What of Kristen, cultured and arrogant Kristen? His lover, certainly, but so much more. He had been on his own for a time. A student no longer, at least in terms of immortality. Strong and cocksure in his swordsmanship yet completely inept in the ways of society. He would have been relegated to the ranks of peasantry, denied the chance to rise in the world if not for her patronage.  
  
Was an immortal's teacher only a person who taught swords and killing? Or was a teacher someone who taught life lessons, brought new knowledge to the untutored. He had been a Highland barbarian when he arrived and a polished gentleman when he departed. Aye, teacher and lover Kristen had filled both roles in his life.  
  
His mind's eye turned to Louise Barton, his mortal lover, killed or drowned by accident? Kristen denied having murdered the young artist. No proof, no witnesses. He had taken her word, albeit reluctantly. But with the angst of doubt clamoring he had turned away from her and she had tried to kill him. He had stayed his sword then, pity and disgust warring within him but his heart had dredged up compassion for her in the face of the demons of her insecurities and obsession.  
  
He had thought that she would eventually overcome her problems, become secure in her life. Never would he imagine that the past would repeat itself. And still in the face of her attack on Richie and her attempted murder of Maria, it appeared that her devils were still riding amok.  
  
So why had his hand stayed that final solution? Did he still harbor some affection for the woman? He had killed lovers before, killed females before, why not this one who so obviously violated the code he lived by?  
  
Not chivalry, Kristen was not weak, she had survived the game longer than he. Though her physical body was not as strong as a man's she could aquit herself well with a sword. Not chivalry then, this inability to kill her.  
  
Like kinsman, teachers and students were they not the fabric of life? Did they not hold an inviolatable tie? The bonds we make in life are all that hold us. Break those bonds and be cast adrift, unrecoverable. For who could live with himself, named deep within betrayer, kinslayer.  
  
Yet some part of him must have acknowledged the need no, the righteousness of her death. Else why had Methos gone unchallenged, left teacher unavenged? He could not bring himself to become that bondless, piteous creature, adrift and poisoned by the quickening of his teacher. He could not summon the will to kill her, not with the tie that bound them still. But he could not bring himself to challenge her killer either.  
  
Thinking of Methos as euthanist helped quell the tiny disquieting pangs of his heart. Thinking of him ending Kristen's lifelong mental illness, preventing the possibility of more innocents dying helped him give sanctuary and hospitality to his teacher's killer.  
  
Methos was right. Someone had to do it, he could only give silent thanks that it hadn't been him. 


End file.
